


The One with the Scrapbook

by rivlee



Series: The One with the .... [1]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Team Leckie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivlee/pseuds/rivlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leckie is his typical investigative (nosy) self in Runner and Chuckler's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One with the Scrapbook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uniformly (dustystars)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=uniformly+%28dustystars%29).



> From a tumblr prompt requested by Nat. It started with Runner/Chuckler _“Come over here and make me.”_ and this is where it ended up.

“What the hell is this?” Leckie asked. He had a huge, bulging photo album in his hands, opened to the first page. “Is that a balloon? Why are there parts of a water balloon glued down to this page?”

Runner leaned over the back of his couch and handed Hoosier a beer. “I thought you promised to watch Detective Leckie?” he asked.

“Never said I’d supervise him,” Hoosier said. “You know how nosy he is. No sense of personal space and thinks everything is up for his own personal consumption. The man only respects privacy when it’s his own.”

“What an asshole,” Runner said.

“Honestly, I don’t know why you’d even let him into your happy home.” Hoosier agreed.

“Fuck you all,” Leckie said.

“Even me?” Chuckler called from the kitchen.

“Even you, oh Grill Master,” Leckie said. He shook the book. “What the hell, though?”

Hoosier tipped his head back and smirked. He winked at Runner before he pointed to Leckie. “You never told him?”

Runner shrugged. “Never had the time to get a word in edgewise all these years. You know what he’s like.”

“You were roommates for four years,” Hoosier said. He turned to Leckie. “You never wondered why, on the first day we all moved into that college dorm damn near ten years ago, Runner here basically shoved his tongue down Chuckler’s throat in front of God, country, and our Resident Advisor?”

“It was a very welcome, greeting” Chuckler said, the sizzling sound of hamburgers on the grill top almost drowning out his voice.

Leckie shrugged. “I figured it was just some kind of dare. You know, someone telling Runner to go climb the tall guy like a tree and plant a big one on Lurch.”

“Chuckler’s going to spit in your food and you’re going to deserve it,” Hoosier said. 

Runner laughed in agreement. He patted Hoosier on the shoulder before wandering over to the kitchen. “Hey, Lew, Leckie’s out here caressing your mom’s scrapbook. He wants to know about the balloons.”

“Aww, the start of our grand romance,” Chuckler said. 

“What?” Leckie asked. He flipped through first few pages of the book. “You’re only, like, five here.”

“Eight, actually,” Chuckler said. He had four plates of burgers and a fifth plate of various condiments precariously balanced on his arms. 

“Five says he drops it all,” Hoosier said as he settled back into his seat. He snorted at the frown Chuckler gave him.

“No bet,” Runner said with pride as Chuckler made it to the coffee table without dropping a thing. He tapped the back of Leckie’s head as his took his seat. “Use a coaster, you animal.”

Leckie swatted him off and made a show of turning his beer bottle all over the tabletop. “Nah, I’m going to continue marking up your Ikea masterpiece here until you tell me what the hell all this means.”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Chuckler said through a mouthful of food. “Our parents had a long-standing bet about when we’d finally get our shit together. Mom started documenting it after that water balloon battle.”

“What was so special that time?” Leckie asked. 

Chuckler put his food down, leaned over, and kissed Runner’s cheek. “First time I did that,” he explained. “I yelled at him from our balcony about throwing water balloons down at my head. He told me to come up there and make him stop. Dad told me some shit about attracting more flies with honey. so I went for nice.”

“Yeah, it got you a shirt full of broken water balloons for your trouble,” Runner said. 

“Worth it,” Chuckler said.

“Dipshits,” Hoosier muttered into his beer, an indulgent smile on his face.

Leckie just rolled his eyes and flipped to the next page, ignoring the handful of napkins Chuckler tossed at him. “Is this skateboard tape?”

Runner busted out laughing, hands quickly covering his mouth before he could spit anything out. “Fuck,” he wheezed. “I forgot about that.”

Chuckler held up his left arm with pride and pointed to a faint scar on his elbow. “He told me he’d kiss and make it better if I stopped cursing in front of Mrs. Flaherty’s doorstep. Runner's still scared shitless of her.”

“She hated me. She'd watch me from her window and shake her fist at me as I walked by,” Runner said. “Any person with half a brain was scared of her, so of course Lew here loved her.”

“She made good banana bread," Chuckler said. 

“The story of Hansel and Gretel was created just for kids like you, Juergens,” Leckie said. “So easily bought by food.”

Chuckler leaned across the table and gripped Leckie's shoulder. “It's okay, Lucky. We know you're still so sad that no one wil bake for you just because they feel like it."

“Whatever,” Leckie muttered. He flipped through until the middle of the book. “Oh, fuck me, that’s awkwardly precious.”

“Give it here,” Hoosier ordered. 

Leckie passed the book with a smile on his face. Hoosier looked at it and laughed. “Jesus, Runner, I didn’t realize you actually _did_ have a growth spurt to get to as short as you are now. Christ, you barely come up to Chuckler’s elbow here.”

Runner’s face went soft as he leaned over Hoosier’s shoulder to look at the picture of two awkward teenagers. They were both fifteen there, Lew had shot up in height over the summer and truly, honestly, towered over everyone. Runner had _just_ hit a whopping five feet tall. They were both covered in mud and grass stains in the picture, Runner in his soccer uniform, face scrunched up as Chuckler patted his cheeks with mud covered hands from the baseball field. They were both drenched through and Runner remembered just how hard Mama Juergens had laughed while she ordered them to stay still for the picture. It was between one second of flash and the next when Lew had bent down and smacked a kiss to the top of Runner’s forehead. 

“How did you two assholes not start dating until college?” Hoosier asked. “Look at you.”

Chuckler grinned as Runner met his eyes. “Turn the page,” he said.

Hoosier did as he ordered and frowned. “A Mets ticket stub?”

“The Cubs at the Mets, when good old Shea Stadium still stood," Chuckler said. "We thought it was going to be our last date, because you know, Columbia’s kind of a massive school. We didn’t know if we were going to see each other, and we were kids. So at the time we thought that was was kind of our beginning and end. A baseball game right before school started. We never thought we were really going to cross paths except for when we come for breaks. I was still determined to go for Architecture at the time and Runner was determined to disappoint his parents with his Creative Writing degree.”

“That why you switched to Education?” Leckie asked. 

“Unlike you, Peaches, kids actually like me,” Runner said.

“It’s probably because you’re their size,” Leckie said. 

“Anyway,” Runner said as he flipped Leckie off, “we decided to just let ourselves have the summer. I mean, who really ends up with the person they had a crush on in high school? So when the random room assignment stuck us right across the hall from each other…”

Hoosier nodded. “Yeah, I’d probably shove my tongue down Lew’s throat too in that case. I always knew you two were John Hughes level of After School Special Puppy Love romance bullshit.”

“And that’s why you’re the best of the best men,” Runner said. He pulled another large binder from under the coffee table. “This is the wedding our parents have been planning for us since we were eight.” He stood up, grabbed his plate with one hand and Chuckler with the other. “You two figure out how to make it less of a spectacle and tell our mothers neither one of us is wearing a white tux. We fed you. Get to work.”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Leckie muttered as he opened the binder. “Doves? No. No doves.”

“I hate you both,” Hoosier yelled at Runner and Chuckler’s backs as they disappeared around the corner. 

Runner immediately went to the sink of dirty dishes and started to clean. It was one of those things ingrained from childhood. He could hear his grandma cursing him from the grave as she tried to wash off day old lasagna. Runner had never left a sink full of dishes since the first time she yelled at him over twenty years ago. 

“You know, eventually they’re going to find out we eloped,” Lew whispered as he leaned against Runner.

“Why are you whispering?” Runner asked.

“They’ll hear us,” Lew said.

“Hoosier already knows,” Runner said. “He saw us coming out of the courthouse that day and I had to tell him the truth before he dragged Leckie into the investigation. The only reason Peaches doesn’t know is because he said the one thing you’re never supposed to say in front of Hoosier.”

“He did not call one of Hoosier’s dogs ugly,” Lew said. He shook his head in despair. “Oh, Leckie.”

“So Hoosier's in the middle of fighting one of his passive aggressive wars of vengeance. I’m not getting in between that. Leckie can find out we eloped on our collective death beds.”

“Shut up before he hears you,” Lew murmured low, fingers tight around Runner’s waist as if just whispering about it could summon Leckie from the next room. 

“Oh yeah?” Runner asked. He turned around in Lew’s arms, stretched up to his tip toes, and gently tugged Lew down by the chain around his neck, fingers grasped around the ring identical to his own. “Why don’t you come down here and make me?”


End file.
